Warm Memories

  Martha Swims and Turk Norton, two people that were a big part of the local racing scene for years, passed away recently within days of each other.

 Both meant a lot to me.

 Martha Swims, the wife of Mickey Swims and mom of Mia Greene and the late Mike Swims, has been described as the matriarch of Georgia short track racing. I couldn’t agree more.

 I’ve repeated often how the late Hence Pollard, co-founder and long-time promoter of Senoia Raceway, got me into the writing business by giving me season passes to races at his track.

 But Martha was the first one to pay me for compiling racing results and sending them to newspapers and radio stations.

 One night at Dixie Speedway in the late 1970s she called me aside, thanked me for what I was doing and handed me $75.

 That amount of money may not seem like much to some today (It does to me), but it was much appreciated back in the day.

 I wrote stories for Dixie and Rome speedways at times over the years. We never discussed a price ahead of time, but when the check came in the mail, signed by Martha, it was for an amount that was plenty fair.

 She also went out of her way to make me feel welcome at Dixie and Rome, and make Joanne and me feel like family when we were at those tracks.

 In the summers, we sometimes took bushels of produce to her, because she somehow found time, in her busy schedule of helping run two and at one time three race tracks, to cook and freeze large quantities of vegetables.

 Back in the day, Martha often asked about Hence and Reba Pollard and sent her best wishes to them. The Pollards and Swims families were competitors, but that didn’t stop them from caring about each other.

 I feel sure she felt that way about countless other people, and I know I’m not the only one who was influenced by her.

 I think it’s fair to say that Martha Swims did as much or more for our racing community as anyone male or female.

  Turk Norton, who lived in Stockbridge in the heyday of his racing career, was a stand-out in the old Cadet and Sportsman divisions in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

 Many a night, some of the best racing was between him and drivers like JR Hardy, Junior Neese and Sammy Cooper. Later on he raced against some young whippersnappers like Eric Evans, Clint Smith and Michael Williams.

 In 1980, Turk won so many A Cadet races at Senoia that track officials placed a bounty on him, not once but twice.

 He also found success at West Atlanta Raceway, which later was known as Seven Flags Speedway.

 It was at West Atlanta one late season night that I ate some of the best hot dogs I’ve ever tasted, courtesy of Turk and his crew.

 It was cold that night, and Turk had built a bonfire after his race, which was early in the program.

 The fire started dying down, and the wood supply was low.

 Turk solved the problem by tossing the wood ramps he used to load his race car into the fire.

 Someone brought out some hot dogs and a couple of coat hangers and we had ourselves a nice, but chilly picnic.

 Looking back on it, that’s a mighty warm memory.

 RIP Turk and Miss Martha.